Hynda K. Kleinman
I have been in medical research for over 50 years. After receiving my PhD in 1974, I went immediately into medical research in a hospital setting, then spent 31 years at the National Institutes of Health conducting basic research. For the past 20 years, I have worked as a part-time consultant for pharmaceutical companies in biomedical and clinical trials. My research has covered tissue regeneration and repair, cancer treatments, and development of assays for testing drugs and diseases. I have developed patents that were licensed to companies, including a reagent widely used in the research community for looking at cell development and tumor growth that is sold by companies as a very popular research item. I also developed a compound for wound healing that is currently being tested in clinical trials in patients. Throughout my career, I have trained many young scientists - high school students, college students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers - and I am most proud that so many of them have gone on to successful careers. I also chaired the very first Committee on the Status of Women at NIH in 1991, where we investigated pay, resources, and space, found a number of deficiencies, and our work resulted in pay raises and promotions for many women and a few men.
• PhD
• PhD
• Received 1974
• Chaired the first Committee on the Status of Women at NIH in 1991
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell them to work hard and make sure that they get what they need to get their research done, and not to be frightened off by someone who says something bad about you or doesn't respect you. When they tell you no, push back, go around them, or find another way, but don't accept negative stuff. I think the biggest challenge for young women is their own self-confidence and something called the imposter syndrome, where they think that they don't deserve to be a speaker at a meeting or they don't deserve to get a paper published. They really have to be more positive about themselves and have more self-confidence, and go after things. There is a barrier from others, but women also have a self-made barrier that they need to overcome.
Locations
Oblato Inc
Hollywood, FL